Recently Boko Haram was in the news for figuratively and literally propagating the idea that 'Western Education is forbidden'. They caught international limelight when #BringBackOurGirls occupied our prime time news slots. The tragic circumstances which highlighted the existence of such a barbaric and retrograde militia also exposed the prejudices of our own existence.

When
Boko Haram carried attacks on girls - kidnapped them, fed them, kept
them alive and converted them - they made headlines. But their
actions prior to this, when they ambushed boys and burnt them alive,
slit their throats while letting females go unharmed, no one even
flinched. That my dear readers tell us about ourselves.

In
Focus

Boko
Haram has carried out strikes in the North Eastern territory of the
country repeatedly. But what gave it international attention was when
on night of 14/15th April 2014, the Boko Haram attacked a secondary
school in Chibok in the state of Borno. It kidnapped more than 200
school girls and abducted them to forests. The international media
woke up to the news predictably aghast. Social media took up the
cause in a big way and #BringBackOurGirls a tag on Twitter got the
attention of celebrities to the issue. Even Michelle Obama demanded
that the act was ghastly and the girls should be saved at all costs.

While
this is something we should expect out of civilised societies, there
is a piece of information that should make us ashamed of ourselves.
This attack by Boko Haram was neither in isolation nor the very
first. Boko Haram in its barbaric march towards power, had attacked
Nigerian schools earlier too. There were several attacks on schools
to justify it's disgust towards western education.

In
one such attack in Yobe on February 25, the Islamists came in pick up
trucks. They surrounded the dormitory where boys were sleeping,
locked the doors and sealed all routes of escape. Then lit the rooms
on fire to let the boys sleeping to be charred to death. Those boys
who managed to escape got their throats slit by the militants waiting
outside. 59 boys were killed in that incident. The girls being the
weaker sex were asked to leave the school unharmed. They were asked
to go back to their villages and get married to become good wives.
This didn't happen once, it happened on four different occasions. No
one outraged on these incidents of the death of boys. Not on this
scale.

Let
us consider, the flow of information about the Nigerian news. Most
international news agencies would follow the news flowing from Africa
with a disdain towards the perpetual violence that engulfs the
beautiful continent. Most 'news experts' in this case, would be just
readers about the news, due to lack of their own knowledge on the
conflicts in this region. In such a scenario, the boring, regular
news of being burnt alive to death or throats of school boys slit
doesn't grab attention. What grabs their attention is that girls are
being abducted and are being denied education.

While
this situation would merit attention, it shows how shockproof we have
become as a soceity towards the plight of men. Men dying doesn't make
news anymore. It is the girls being denied education that becomes a
more important news.

If
the same militia had been condemned for hacking boys to death, if the
same Boko Haram terrorists were chased out for their atrocities on
boys of burning them alive, then there would be no kidnapping of
girls. If #AvengeOurBoys was our reaction, then there would be no
situation to have a tag proclaiming #BringBackOurGirls

This
situation is scantly surprising when the UN itself is focusing on
victims of circumstances based upon their gender. This incident and
the media attention it has got, tells us about the things we are not
doing right.

Men
have been losing their lives donning their roles as protectors, ever
since the dawn of civilisation. Modernity has given women the choice
out of their traditional role as caretakers. This lack of empathy for
male victims is a result of half-developed progression.

The
western world has been the harbinger of modernity in its present
form, yet it has failed to be sensitive towards issues of men. If
this is going to be the result of modernisation, then it is shameful
to admit that Boko Haram got one thing right, their name but for
entirely different reasons. Not for the progression from western
education they want to reverse, but for western education not being
progressive enough.

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